Authors: Susan Hubbard
I’d thought Sophie would drop me off at the station, but instead she parked and came inside with me. So I joined the line at the tickets window, forced to choose a destination. “How much is a ticket to Florida?” I asked.
“Whereabouts in Florida?” the clerk asked.
“Um, Sarasota,” I said.
“Train goes to Tampa or Orlando,” he said. “And the rest of the way, you take the bus. Either way, a one-way ticket is $82.”
He said that Tampa was further south. I counted out the bills. “When does the train leave?”
“It leaves at 6:50,” he said, “a.m., tomorrow.”
And so I had another night in the hard narrow bed at Sophie’s, preceded by another lackluster dinner of chicken salad. Did she eat anything else? I wondered. I wished I could call Mr. Winters and have dinner with him, instead of being Sophie’s captive audience. Tonight’s topics included her noisy neighbors, the horrors of dogs, more evidence of my mother’s spoiled and selfish nature, and Sophie’s digestive problems.
I tried to listen only to the parts about my mother (“She had to have horseback riding lessons, even though they cost a fortune and she came home filthy afterwards. I couldn’t bear the
smell
”), but it was hard to concentrate, because Sophie’s thoughts kept interfering. Even when I tried to block her thoughts, they trickled through somehow. She had suspicions about me; she thought at first I’d “come looking for money,” and when I didn’t ask for any she grew suspicious that I had too much of my own. What was I doing, traveling alone at my age? She wondered if I was taking drugs. She didn’t think my father had any idea where I was, but she wasn’t about to call him after that last time, when he sounded so ungrateful.
I wanted to ask about that, but I kept quiet. The most interesting thing I learned was that for years my mother had given Sophie financial support; she sent money every week when she had her bee-keeping job (Sophie was too genteel to take a job herself), and when my parents married, they gave Sophie five thousand dollars to help her start a rose nursery. But Sophie’s jumbled thoughts were bitter even about that:
a measly five thousand, when they had so much. If they’d given me ten, the business might have survived. Will you look at her hair? I’d like to cut it myself, make her look respectable
.
We said good-night, both of us weary yet wary. Sophie thought I might creep about the house, looking for cash or something else to steal. I worried that she might try to cut off my hair while I slept.
Next morning, she woke me at 5:30 and urged me to hurry. “You need to get to the station at least half an hour early,” she said.
Sophie drove with both hands clenched on the steering wheel, slowing down whenever another car approached. “Only drunks out at this hour,” she said.
We made it by 6:20. It was cold and not quite light outside, and despite my fleece jacket, I shivered.
Sophie also felt the cold, but she wasn’t about to leave. She felt it was her duty to make sure I got on the train. In truth, if she hadn’t been around, I would have asked for a refund and hitchhiked instead.
So we stood and shivered together, watching the train approach.
Saying goodbye to her was awkward. Clearly, we’d proven a mutual disappointment. But she presented her dry, powdered cheek, which I kissed lightly, and that seemed to suffice.
“You call me when you get there,” she said, and I said I would, both of us knowing that I wouldn’t.
The train’s name was the Silver Star, and from the moment I saw it, I loved it. I looked around at the other passengers, many of them asleep, blankets pulled up to their chins, and I wondered where they’d come from and where they were going. The conductor who checked my ticket wore a navy blue uniform and a crisp white shirt, and he smiled at me and called me “Ma’am.” I loved that, too.
Sometimes I felt like thirteen, not “going on thirty” — alive in all my senses, filled with curiosity and wonder. Today was such a day. As the train picked up speed, its horn blew, and we moved smoothly through a brightening landscape, through woods, past lakes and streams, past towns only beginning to waken. A few passengers stirred and wakened, and some passed me on their way to the dining car for breakfast. I felt content where I was.
I lay back in my leather seat, my feet extended on the footrest, and let the gentle sway of the car rock me to sleep. When I awoke, we were pulling into Jacksonville, Florida. The loudspeaker said we’d stop for ten minutes, and we could leave the train and find coffee and food in the station.
I didn’t want coffee or food, but I decided to stretch my legs, so I walked along the platform, savoring the fresh air. Florida’s air smelled different from Georgia’s. It was still early morning, and the scent was faint but pronounced: a humid earthy odor, with hints of flowering citrus and rotting vegetation in it. Later I’d learn the smell is characteristic of land and vegetation that bake in intense sun, then sizzle in heavy rain.
A newspaper box stood outside the station, and one of its headlines read: “Reedy’s Killer Strikes Again?” And that was the end of my morning of wonder.
I couldn’t read much through the box window, but the first paragraph of the story said that last night in Savannah, a body had been found, its condition similar to that of Robert Reedy, murdered four months ago near Asheville.
I glanced at the passengers around me, sure that my face betrayed my guilt, but no one seemed to notice. Quickly I walked back to the train. I took a swallow of tonic to steady me; so little was left, perhaps enough for two more days. Then what would I do?
The train began to move again, but I took no pleasure in its movements. All I saw ahead of me was an endless struggle to survive. Now I knew why my father called our condition an affliction.
South of Jacksonville, the landscape grew more tropical. Trees I’d never seen before grew profusely — a jungle of palms of various shapes and sizes interspersed with trees whose leaves grew in red-tinged clusters. Again, it bothered me that I didn’t know their names.
Green-tinged ponds spotted with water lilies bordered plots of land covered by black plastic tarps, under which verdant vines grew profusely. What was growing there? Houses, some little more than sheds or shacks, and small churches had front doors facing the railroad tracks. We passed towns with exotic names: Palatka and Crescent City and Deland. (Although its station looked pretty and picturesque, I sensed something sinister about Deland. Later I learned that it was a frequent site of natural disasters, accidents, and murders. Why is it that some places are so much more prone to trouble than others?)
When I let my mind turn inward again, it was much calmer. It was grisly to think of another death like Reedy’s, but whoever had done it would only deflect attention away from me. I didn’t bother to speculate about who might have committed this murder — it could be any one of the thousands of vampires my father had told me were out there, getting by in whatever way they could. I let myself hope that whoever died had been a bad person, even though I’d been taught that there was no excuse for murder.
Then I thought ahead, to what might happen in Sarasota. I took the small book of wedding photos from my backpack and studied each picture. My mother’s smile suggested that she’d never had a moment of worry or despair, yet from my father’s stories I knew she’d known both, before and after the wedding. Why would she have chosen to return to the city where she was married? Wouldn’t the memories be painful?
I studied the details: the tropical plants in the background, the candles and glowing paper lanterns used to light the ceremony. There were few guests; one photo showed a heavily rouged Aunt Sophie and a younger, thinner Dennis with my mother (I assumed my father had taken the picture); another showed my parents standing before a woman in a black gown; her back faced the camera, but from their positions it seemed she was pronouncing them man and wife.
I flipped the page, and a postcard fell from the album’s binding. An image of a creature floating in turquoise-colored water stared up at me; I bent to pick it up. On the card’s other side, a legend identified the animal as
a manatee
, also known as a sea cow. I’d heard that word before, in a crossword dream.
The message, written in right-slanted handwriting, read, “Sophie, I’ve found a new home. No worries, and no word to the others, please.” It was signed simply, “S.”
But it was the postmark that interested me most: “Homosassa Springs, FL.” I thought,
Five S’s in one name
.
The next time the conductor made his way through the car, I flagged him down. “I’ve made a mistake,” I said. “I bought a ticket to the wrong place.”
The conductor shook his head. He seemed genuinely sorry that he couldn’t change the ticket. The only person who could do that, he said, was a ticket agent, and he advised me to talk to one at the next station.
And so I left the Silver Star at the next stop, Winter Park. The agent in the small brick station told me three times that it said
no re-fund
on my ticket. Then he told me three times that Amtrak had discontinued service to the Gulf Coast.
I still had no idea where Homosassa Springs was, which probably was an asset in my negotiations. I kept saying “I need to find my mother,” and he kept saying, “Amtrak doesn’t go there,” until finally a person in line behind us said, “She could take the bus!”
Someone else said, “Give the kid a break.”
And that was how I got a refund of eighteen dollars and advice on how to find the bus station (which I had no intention of following). I headed down the main street of Winter Park, lined with shops and sidewalk cafés. The air smelled of stagnant water and women’s perfume. As I passed a café, I heard a woman tell a server, “That was the best Bloody I’ve ever had.”
I stopped walking, and went back to the restaurant. The server seated me on the patio. “I’d like one of those,” I said, pointing at the woman’s tall red glass.
The server said, “May I see your ID?”
I showed him the only ID I had: my library card.
“Uh huh,” the server said. He came back with a tall glass that looked like the one my neighbor was drinking. Imagine my disappointment when it turned out to be nothing more than spicy tomato juice.
L
ight and shadow: you need both to paint a scene or tell a story. To represent three dimensions on a flat surface, you need light to form the object and shadow to give it shape.
In composing a picture or a story, you pay attention to negative and positive space. The positive space is what you want the viewer’s eye to focus on. But negative space also has substance and shape. It isn’t the absence of something; it’s a presence.
My mother’s absence in my life was in many ways a presence. My father and I were shaped by it, even in the years when we didn’t mention her name. The prospect of finding her tantalized me, yet made me anxious; it threatened to rearrange and displace everything familiar. If I found her, would I become the negative space?